


It's a Poor Sort of Memory (That Only Works Backwards)

by karrenia_rune



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Genre: Gen, community:50scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting around the land underground is complicated, even at the best of times as Lily learns from the White Knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Poor Sort of Memory (That Only Works Backwards)

Disclaimer: The characters that appear here or are mentioned are the original creations of Lewis Carroll or whoever owns his estate now; they are not mine.  
Note: a little bit of reference back to my previous story "Working without a Net."  
"It's a Poor Sort of Memory (That Only Works Backwards") by karrenia

If one looked only upon the surface of things and no farther beyond that; it would seem somehow, well, the word limiting came to mind. And a limiting vision of her world and of those who shared the world with her was simply not an option. Lily recalled, rather vividly her experience lost and wandering; yet unafraid of any danger that might conceivably befall her.

And while she had lain, bemused, bewildered and bewitched in a field of lulling poppies; such dreams and thoughts had come into her head.

As she had told her would-be rescuers; it was like having a dream within a dream. It was like being given the gift to look beyond surface impressions and she had learned that not everything was  
what it seemed.

Lily had been very young as time and the relative ages of the inhabitants of Wonderland reckoned time; and perhaps more than a little naive.

However, now a slightly older Lily realized 'that' had not been a necessarily a wholly bad or a wholly good thing. She blushed scarlet as juju berry and tossed back her head, the motion causing the milk-white tresses to fall over and across her eyes. "As mother always says, 'it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."

Her blue eyes scanned her immediate surroundings, the entangled undergrowth crunching underneath the soles of her boot. the trees marching in row upon row to either side of where she stood in a forest glade, a wall of greenery for as far as she could see. The cries, croaks making an odd, but not an alarming counterpoint to the ping, and rushing of water in the streams and pools and the rush of wind through the air. She stepped forward and kept moving, wishing suddenly for her mother's ability of rapid-fire zigzagging. "Alas," she muttered, "that is a privilege reserved only for Queens, and that, I most definitely am not."

Even now she could still vividly recall elongated slightly sheepish-looking face of the White Knight as he came to her rescue. She had giggled a bit when his sincere efforts at gallantry and chivalry only made him more and more entangled in the stirrups that dangled like festival streamers from the flanks of his white horse.

Now, she did not find it silly at all, and no matter how many times he fell, became entangled or otherwise enmeshed, she calmly helped him become unsnarled and remounted;  
'In fact, she thought, in the back of her mind; it has also become something of a, well, ritual.'

“Perhaps, “she muttered aloud, "and while I have always thought Mother's advice, as well, a little on the obscure side, there might be a kernel of truth in that old bromide, Perhaps, if I apply it in the correct manner, maybe he wouldn't become so lost and tangled up all the time."

The White Knight emerged from a deeper part of the forest disheveled and rumpled-looking, as usual and startled, becoming so turned about that for a second he ended facing backward the way he had come on the saddle; the face of his stolid and dependable steed resigned as usual until he sorted himself out. She waited and then said. "Greetings!

"Halloo! Greetings and Salutations!" he replied. "While it does my heart good to see you, I must confess to being a bit bewildered by your presence here."

"I've given this matter a lot of thought, and I've applied Mother's recommended system of over-thinking a problem," Lily replied, blushing.

"I think, I mean," she suddenly stammered before bracing herself and continuing on, "and I have hit upon the solution to your propensity to always become tangled up and turned topsy-turvy while you're riding." She stepped forward crossing the distance that separated them in a matter of moments.

"Ah, ahh..."he whispered. "That would be something, indeed." He paused and gingerly dismounted from his horse's back he smiled at her. "I had come to the conclusion that it was just because  
I was well, clumsy, inept..."

Lily stood up on her tiptoes and placed a restraining finger of her right hand over his lips before he could further dismiss himself as a worthy knight. "Hush," she whispered and then, suddenly, without analyzing it, or her reasoning for do so, wrapped her arms tightly around his armored body and hugged him. "After all, it it's all in the eye of the beholder, is it not?" Taken by aback, at first he did not respond right away and then suddenly sensing a little of her mood, nodded and returned the embrace and he sighed: a whooshing of expelled air that left him titling slightly listing to the left.


End file.
